Monday, September 13, 2010

l'ultimo messaggio ultimo

September 11th, 2010

Okay this is the last last last message for my Rome blog. I return home to NYC September 9th, 2010 exactly 12 months to the day, leaving September 9, 2009. I have been in Nova Scotia since August 4th, where the world was another kind of fantasy—apart from Rome but gorgeous. Here below aand above are some fotos of Nova amazement. and Mt. Desert as well—for the swimmers among you.The ocean got warm the last two weeks and the air hot—Nova Scotians say 'blistering' but to New Yorkers and Romans, "hot" in sun is accurate.so much so we go from one entrance to the sea to the next—adventureland in the north atlantic. spectacular. for a moment you almost can imagine it is tropical....then Boston for 'orientation' via Maine (see below), then up to Vermont for Labor Day weekend, then first week of school. Now home finally.

As Benoit writes: "Trying not to sink and stay open to new proposals."

Indeed. AAR becomes even more remarkable, paradisical in memory and surely divine in comparison to working for a living. No surprise there even as I feel in transition very floaty and not down to earth yet. I don't want to "come down."

New York is glorious. Today like 9 years ago, a cloudless blue sky: heat building in the day, cool enough for a jacket at night. My apartment is strange homey odd familiar noisy sunny gritty fabulous plants blossoming tropistically and a double

rainbow in Vermont as closing dollop to my international and national travels.

Just back so I am still seeing drs (routine checkups et al) and unpacking. In Rosebay, I got to string together dailies (from film) and think it is going to work—very emotional with a strong narrative arc [which I will confuse of course]. we will see. I received in mail today a cd from the composer Alessandro Alessandrani [the italian composer whom i met that last day before leaving Rome who worked with Moricone]. Such a whirlwind that month, this last year, everything. Great great visions in my head: Italy and rome and Florence and naples and procida and Sicily and cairo. Mind changing.

Boxes arrived easily and whole. For anyone at AAR this is the way to go. Painfully confusing but then again easy once you know the routine. Very cheap.

Saw art and films at PS 1 on Saturday and then out with a friend for vegetarian meal. Still spoiled by Mona and her crew at the AAR though; nothing compares. Sunday to see Henry's film at Anthology: wild 'document' of John Zorn's collaboration with Richard Foreman. Sound was held back and beautiful silent opening. Nice to see and to see friends there: Bruce and Sally, Peggy and Keith, Nada and Adeena.

I just bought ticket to return to Rome to shoot pickups, get my camera, figure out lab and see friends and visit Sienna. I am excited. Feels great to return to a place I know that remains expansive and gorgeous. My memory that the weather will still be beautiful and a bit cool.

RE the film, haven't gotten to edit in last two weeks, since leaving Nova Scotia, what with travel, taxes and teaching. The three Ts! As I was closing out my time there, I had begun to put words onto the image and it seems clear it needs voiceover for some of the words. I have to find a logic, a theoretical base, for which is which. One line for history? One for emotion? One for observation? One for questions? This will be interesting, challengingand likely tough —it is really a crux of the film's structure.

Yael comes next week and we will have a day working and Gisburg just skyped to talk about China film and upcoming mix—so we are slowly very slowly picking up steam.[Henry saw me on bike and thought I was driving very slow! Probably was, both to look around and because my city bike is a junker!)

More to do regarding drs and bills and taxes. Commuting and feeling poorer than last year even with our tiny stipend! How can that be?

The question of the last two weeks: how is memory different from, better than photos, or is it? Does one feel more accurate? More dense? More personal? The question is of course one of technology. Technology increasing our memory sites, jogging memory we might say, but then again what have we lost 'taking' the pictures in the moment from the moment, and then again how has the brain changed in its reliance on those small black boxes we call cameras.All this seems highly relevant as I charge through my brain for images of the last months and scour the photos I have made. A very different set of sites/sights greets me in these dual un parallel processes. If not absolutely different, certainly the sense of the streets, the darkness, the smells and placement of bodies in space. What Henry's montage erased in his piece on Foreman/Zorn; the cutting dissembled space. Not a critique of the film but a recognition that there are alternative visions. And the ways to see are multiple

A good end there then.

Many thanks to you who read. Please let me know who you are and for now—

About Me

Abigail Child’s images contain elements of humor, liveliness and complex sound/image montage. In the words of LA Weekly, she makes “brilliant exciting work….” Her films explore gesture as language, using radical strategies to rewrite narrative, including MAYHEM (1987), COVERT ACTION (1984), DARK DARK (2001), THE FUTURE IS BEHIND YOU (2004) and MIRROR WORLD (2006). Other productions borrow documentary to poetically envision and interrogate public space including B/SIDE, BELOW THE NEW and in-progress RIDE THE TIGER: Scenes From Capitalist China. Recent work has expanded into installation utilizing surround sound and multiple projectors, as well as 2D photographic work.
Child is a recipient of many awards, including Guggenheim, Fulbright and Radcliffe Fellowships and most recently the Rome Prize 2009-2010 which she is currently enjoying. She has had retrospectives at Harvard Cinematheque, Anthology Film Archives (in conjunction with New Museum NY), Yerba Buena Center SF; EXIS, Seoul, South Korea and in Switzerland at Reservoir.